Table I
Gross and Ne1 Annual Pay of Private~. 1730sType of unit Annual pa~ (grm')" Annual pay (net)
trouble' and kopeckq
I tnlanlryman, field force' 11.85 5.70~
2 Dragoon, di110 12.87 6.70h
3 Cuirassier, ditlo 14.72?
4 Artilleryman (bombardier) 14.40<?
5 Engineer (miner)^15 .(Kl?
6 Infantryman, guards D.17-18 ..^17
7 Cavalryman, guards 18.37
8 Infantryman, garrison (Baltic) 7.32 (5.23?(
9 Infantryman, di110 (internal) 5.00 (3.20?]
10 Cavalryman, garrison 9.12 16.25?]
II Land-mili1iaman (Ukraine) 6.00
Sums to nearest kopeck.
- Net pay indudes meat and sail allowance, bul exclude' deductions for medical services and
uniform and equipment allowance. For the la11er: PSZ xii ii. 5836 ( 17 Aug. 1731 ), p. 119.
Grenadiers' allowance was 1-2 kopecks higher.
b Source: Mikhnevich, in S VM i• (I, i). app., p. 31.
c Source: PSZ xliii. 2480 (1712). Rate' were raisc<l either in or shortly before 1739.
Sources (except where otherwise s1a1ed): Solov"yev, 'Kratkiy i\l. ocherk', p. 257; PSZ xliii. 5864,
Table I.
sergeant-major (vakhmistr) earned over three times as much as a private in
the engineers, over double as much in the guards, 73 per cent more in the
cuirassiers, but only 40 per cent more in an internal garrison unit. When the
first hussar units were set up in Elizabeth's reign, consisting in the main of
immigrants from the South Slav lands, their pay rates were based on those of
their Austrian equivalents; a hussar drew a generous 18 roubles (gross) plus
10.20 to 14.40 roubles for his mount.^38 Artillerymen generally did well under
their patron Shuvalov: a bombardier earned 18 roubles (gross).^39 The military
commission set up on Catherine's accession, when fixing pay rates, kept to
those for the preceding reign-or so at least it stated;^40 there may actually have
been a reduction, at least in the artillery and land-militia. Field-force men now
got 7 .50 to 8 roubles, as did those in Siberian garrison units, but land-
militiamen a mere 5 to 5.33 roubles.^41 Men in the Slobodskaya Ukraina did
38 PSZ xliii. 8370 (I May 1741), pp. 278-9.
39 PSZ xliii. 10689 ( 11 Jan. 1757), p. 330; but a fusilier earned only IO. 90 roubles; cf. p. 366 for
those not in the field artillery.
40 PSZ xliii. 11735 (14 Jan. 1763). § 22, p. 8; see also pp. 40 ff. for further provisions of this
decree and Solov·yev, 'Kratkiy ist. ocherk', p. 244. Duffy (Russia's Military Way, p. 130), citing
an article in VS of 1861, states that pay rates (for infantrymen?) were reduced from the 9 roubles
paid during the Seven Years War. Conceivably this decline reflected the loss of the foreign service
allowance.
41 Ibid., pp. 3-4; Vyazemsky, 'Zapiska', p. 13. Some additional data on pay are offered by von
Hupe!, who also gives the cash value of the uniform and equipment allowance: Beschfl'ibung,
pp. 143, 153-9, 168-75, 175-8, 193-5. Neither source mentions artillerymen.